Which just goes to show that the Jailer ultimately was a worthless throwaway plot device created by the writing team simply to get Sylvanas to make it past the finish line to redemption.
Rather than at least a likable villain with clear motivations, I won’t say I wanted something deep and complex since WoW just can’t live up to that standard compared to much better games, but if Zovaal can’t even be at least entertaining or intriguing then all he’s got going for him is being an aforementioned plot device for a character that the writers are fixing to tell us were incredibly wrong and should be ashamed for disliking or having misgivings about.
I’m not sure about the Jailer, but the concept of soul-splitting absolutely is a last-minute attempt to push the “Sylvanas redemption” arc, which will likely end with her being made a Xel’naga… I mean the Arbiter.
Technically RG Sylvanas doesn’t need a redemption arc, she was a hero that fought and died to defend her people. She’s a hero. I would like to coin the term Nuvanas, but it doesn’t quite fit.
The Banshee Queen on the other hand. Well, Zovaal basically did a kill steal. There will be no redemption for her; she’s gone. Hopefully he shot the mustache twirl out of her and left the part that I enjoy about her character.
A redemption usually requires a recognition that what one did was wrong, and that the person now needs to make amends.
Based on the information we have, Sylvanas rebelled against Zovaal because she herself didn’t want to serve him - not because she recognized anything was wrong. Anything else about how she’ll think or act with her full soul is just theorization at this point. With what we know now, Sylvanas herself isn’t seeking a redemption because she’s still under the impression she was in the right.
If this story now has “given her back” the part of her that feels remorse for her actions, then it pretty much invalidates the character that Sylvanas was. So many people loved her for her hard edge and willingness to get her hands dirty.
“Sylvanas with this piece of her soul back is now literally a different person” is a really weird idea that seems to imply that people who suffer sudden differences in brain chemistry IRL due to injury/drug/magic soul crystal that make them think and act differently are totally separate peoples with no continuity to their pre-change self and thats uh…that’s certainly a perspective, though not one I think you’ll find many agree with.
It basically degrades an entire race that was originally characterized by adaptation to a terrible situation to just… chemicals. They’re now just biologically “wrong.” Feels a bit like pulling the rug out from under people who liked them based on their initial characterization if this is what it is now.
No they were a nation of victims pushed into undeath where they have “eternity” to contemplate their undeath when all the joys of life are denied to them. Hate and mistrusted by the living and they got a leader with the ends justify the means mentality.
In that context then yeah they became a little hateful and spiteful.
A society with flaws is interesting in a fantasy story.
Nationwide trauma combined with a sudden need to adapt to a world that hates them, juxtaposed with an almost spiteful willingness to do what they consider is necessary to get the job done even if it’s horrifying, is far more intriguing then being biologically infected with evil. If undeath is just a plague that turns you into a bad guy, it completely removes the individuality of the Forsaken, which was a key theme for them to begin with.
Oh, so we’re back to humans that’s cursed with a skin disease(don’t like that story either). Yeah, no, I think their souls were damaged.
Smallioz; we can’t twist the lore into what we believe. At the very least acknowledge you know that lore but hate/ignore it. What you’re saying isn’t wrong, but I think soul manipulations plays a huge part.
But they are humans and yeah maybe getting your soul sucked back into your decayed body is not exactly healthy.
Then explain the rules of soul manipulation in:
Necromancers raising a body.
Valkyr raising a body.
Liches raising a body.
Lichking raising a body.
Lichking + Frostmourne raising a body.
A banshee raising a body (Sylvanas raised the dead too)
What is the soul sundering process for all these? How does it affect a character mentally or physically?
What is the difference between a mindless ghoul and a intelligent undead with flesh vs an abomination that has multiple souls and bodies in him? What about skeletons, they are always shown as just grunts. Can they be intelligent too?
Its the inner struggle for me. I like the fact that part of them is still inside of their bodies, but the only way a former cupcake maker poisoning his ally makes sense is if something was internally wrong. Saying they’re all traumatized and decided to just follow the shadow now kills my immersion. If maybe one or two went the way of trauma, then yeah I can understand that, but a whole swath of people from various Kingdoms. That stretches my imagination too much.
You’re a man after my own heart! I would love to dive into that discussion with you, but we’re gonna leave having more questions than answers.
My point is there are some baseline rules and there is some very strong evidence to explain certain forms of necromancy.
It is not just a “skin condition” - they’re literally reanimated corpses, and that’s completely changed both the world’s perspective on them and their perspective towards their lot in life. Like it or not, the Forsaken ARE humans, just in a different state of being - one which has forced them to live differently in order to adapt to this all.
If it’s soul manipulation, that takes away so much of what they chose to do and be. What was once a people overcoming a horrific circumstance is now just “Lordaeron is magically evil now.” That’s not engaging, and the retroactive establishment is kinda dickish storytelling towards a playerbase who’d grown to love them for reasons apart from the purely biological.
That was literally what was established until this Sylvanas soul development. Hell, this fractured soul idea isn’t even really applicable to the Forsaken as a whole, since Sylvanas having one seems to be because she was killed by a mourneblade - not because she was simply undead. Not to mention it wasn’t even an established plot until right now, likely on the floor.
If this kills your immersion, your immersion’s been dead in the water since 2004.
Cdev plays it as a balancing act or that’s at least how I view it. In particular, the Forsaken always try as best they could to play by the rules, play nice, but their shadow side would always poke its had out, or it can be seen vice versa.
I believe that soul manipulation was a factor very early on, it was the cdev comment about their souls being imperfectly attached that really nailed it for me. Steve pretty much sealed it shut when he came on board.
You accused me earlier of making up lore.
This is a blatant falsehood, the forsaken are the nastiest playable race in the game, they do the most heinous stuff in the game all the time. Nothing about their actions speaks of a spurned people pushed to bad things.
The story team is making most of these things up on the fly and has retroactively changed so much about the originally established story that it’s basically unrecognizable. If this is the idea of the Forsaken that you’re immersed in, then you haven’t been immersed until now.
